The New Yorker declares it the year of the whistleblower, and we offer some of our popular posts of 2019.
From The New Yorker:
This year, as one scandal after another played out in the news, it was easy to become overwhelmed. Amid all the noise, there’s been a common theme in many of the reports—the increased profile and significance of whistle-blowers. It’s hard to think of another recent period when the act of whistle-blowing has had such a consequential impact on our politics and culture.
From the Whistleblower Protection Blog:
Ukraine whistleblower
- Can the Ukraine call whistleblower remain anonymous? And, who is obligated to protect his or her anonymity?
- The journalist and the whistleblower. Every journalist who has ever worked with a whistleblower knows these are fraught relationships.
- Remember when the whistleblower complaint was seen as “hearsay”? Turns out secondhand whistleblower “reports are 47.7% more likely than firsthand reports to be substantiated by management, which suggests that management views many secondhand reports as credible.“
Climate Corruption Campaign
- NWC announces new program; Only company insiders would know of climate change-related risks concealed from shareholders, the IRS and the public. The campaign will help these insiders secure confidential whistleblower status.
- More here. Can whistleblowers save the Amazon rainforest?
Government Contracting
- Ernie Fitzgerald, a man once called “America’s most famous whistleblower” died in February at the age of 92.He exposed $600 toilets.
- Bunny Greenhouse was profiled on CBS for her work exposing a no-bid government contract for the vice-president’s former employer, Halliburton.
Money laundering
- Danske Bank whistleblower Howard Wilkinson appeared on the news program 60 Minutes. He exposed a $230 billion Russian money laundering scheme at the bank’s Estonia branch.
- Bradley Birkenfeld, the Swiss bank whistleblower who outed Americans’ secret USB bank accounts, appeared at an offshore fraud and financial services conference in Miami in April.
More environmental whistleblowers
Health care
- of pain clinics that abruptly shut down last summer faces five whistleblower lawsuits accusing it of defrauding Medicare by billing for hundreds of unnecessary urine drug tests.
- Duke University pays $112 million fine in faulty research case.
EU
- In April, the European Union approved whistleblower protection rule.
